Is pattern enabled infrastructure design put IT architects out of job?

Architect are requested to create the operation model to represent the infrastructure that will support the application.

Now, the question is: With pattern oriented solutions, does an architect still have to create an operational model or is the architect still need to be part of a project once it comes the time of the infrastructure design? Should all infrastructure architect need to be assign to other tasks?  Do we still need operation model as we have patterns ready for different types of workload (ie: webapp, database, Java…). See all existing pattern for the IBM Workload Deployer solution at the PureSystems Center. Continue reading

Pattern-type (Part 9): Add the capability to Tweak a virtual application instance.

In this previous article ‘Pattern-type (Part 6): How to add operation with SmartCloud Application Services‘, I explained how to add operation on a pattern-type. Operations provide you the ability to take actions on a deployed pattern/virtual application. These actions can be setting parameters and take actions based on these parameters by launching a specified script and this is done by creating an operation.json file in the appmodel. Continue reading

Pattern-type (Part 8): How to extend an existing pattern-type with SmartCloud Application Services

One of my customer asked me the following question:

“I have my own logging event system and I would like that all log files information of the WebSphere Enterprise Application environment are copied to my logging event system. I don’t want to recreate the full WebApp pattern-type just to add a new functionality. So, how can I leverage the existing WebApp pattern-type and add in it just the functionality I need?” Continue reading

Pattern-type (Part 7): Scaling in/out based on OS metrics with SmartCloud Application Services

In my previous articles Pattern-type (Part 5): Scaling in/out based on your own monitoring collector with SmartCloud Application Services I explained how to Scale in/out using your own monitoring collect (ie: counting files in a directory). In noticed in the documentation (IWD Infocenter) at the end of the page a mention of a ‘CPU’ category and ‘Used’ metrics. This let me think we can re-use some embedded OS metrics in a scaling policy and I will show here how to do it. Continue reading

Pattern-type (Part 6): How to add operation with SmartCloud Application Services

When you define a role in a pattern type, you can associate to this role a number of operations you would like to launch once the pattern is deployed. These operations will be available from the ‘Manage’ panel under the operation tab. Continue reading

Pattern-type (Part 5): Scaling in/out based on your own monitoring collector with SmartCloud Application Services

From the Pattern-type (Part 4): Adding your own monitoring collector to a pattern-type with SmartCloud Application Services, we learned how to add a collector to a pattern-type in order to monitor the deployed services. It was a simple collector counting the number of files in a directory. What I propose in this article is to explain how to leverage this collector to add scaling in/out rules based on the metrics provided by this collector. Continue reading

Pattern-type (Part 4): Adding your own monitoring collector to a pattern-type with SmartCloud Application Services

In the previous articles, I explained own to creates pattern-type for a single server, a master-slave and also how to add static scalability to a pattern-type. Now, if we want to have a dynamic scalability, a scalability which react on a monitoring feature, we have to be able to collect information from the server and this exactly what I will explain in this article. Continue reading